2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship Won By Annie Duke

Published on March 8th, 2010 3:36 am EST

Annie Duke outlasted Erik Seidel in the final match to take down the 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship earlier tonight. With her victory, Duke has become the first woman to ever win this event.

Duke seemed to be cruising towards victory in the championship final after hammering Seidel in their first game to take a 1-0 lead. Seidel quickly regained the momentum however, tying the best of three championship match at 1 after turning in an equally dominating performance in the second game of the battle.

With the championship matchup tied 1-1, Annie Duke relied on a timely suckout to take a dominating lead in the final and decisive match.

The two players found themselves all-in with Seidel holding Ad-Kd and Duke holding Qd-9d. It wasn't meant to be for Seidel, as a queen came, giving Duke the commanding lead in the tie-breaking game.

The end came shortly after that when Seidel pushed holding Ah-2c. Duke snap-called holding pocket Nines, and she ended up turning a straight to take down the tournament.

Annie Duke ended up taking home $500,000 for her victory in this event, while Seidel ended up with $250,000 for his second place finish. Seidel now has over $10 million in lifetime tournament cashes.

This was the second largest cash of Duke's career, and she now has over $4 million in lifetime tournament cashes.

Annie Duke beat the following players to take down this year's title: Andy Bloch, Darvin Moon, Paul Wasicka, Jerry Yang, Dennis Phillips and Erik Seidel. There were some very tough opponents in there, as well as some pretty favorable matchups.

With this victory, Duke joins players such as Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson and Paul Wasicka as winners of the National Heads-up Poker Championship.

Most of the "big" names in this event didn't fare very well at all. Patrik Antonius, Tom Dwan and Daniel Negreanu were all eliminated in the first round, while Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth were sent to the rail in the second.

The 2010 National Heads-Up Poker Championship will begin airing on NBC in mid-April.